Place Bets on AI in Commercial Cleaning

Courtesy of CBAi

Ceris Burns, one of the UK cleaning industry’s best-known voices on artificial intelligence (AI), is heading to Las Vegas in November to help building service contractors (BSCs) from around the world get more out of AI and waste less money on it.

The Founder and Managing Director of CBAi, which provides AI training and consultancy for the cleaning, facilities management, and environmental services sectors, will deliver a speaker session on the final morning of Contracting Success 2026 (CS26). The annual event of Building Service Contractors Association International (BSCAI) runs from 17 to 19 November at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada. This year, BSCAI is hosting the World Federation of Building Service Contractors (WFBSC) Global Executive Congress alongside Contracting Success 2026, bringing commercial cleaning international leaders and industry professionals together.

Since this is Vegas, her session, Are You Investing in the Wrong AI?, is running like a roulette table. The AI you can see, like robots, sensors, and smart buildings, sits on red. The AI you can’t see, like ChatGPT, Copilot, and their rivals, sits on black.

“Most of our industry has stacked its chips on red, and I understand why. You can put a robot in your client’s lobby, and it looks fantastic in the brochure. You can’t put a chatbot in the lobby,” says Burns. “My tip is free—it’s not red or black. It’s both, but the order matters.”

Burns will take the room through early results from CBAi’s AI Readiness Scorecard, completed by industry professionals at events across the UK and Europe this year. Seven in ten have no formal AI policy or only part of one. Eighty-one percent aren’t confident their team can write effective prompts, and just 23 percent scored as AI Ready.

“Use is running ahead of the rules,” she shares. “People try it, type one line, get something bland back, and decide AI doesn’t work. It does work. Nobody showed them how.

Delegates will also see live examples of everyday AI used on real cleaning jobs. In one, a 5 a.m. sick call finds cover and drafts messages in English and Spanish in under two minutes, with a person in charge throughout. In another, a cleaner’s phone photos are checked against the site spec so supervisors can see which site needs a visit first.

“With the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix grandstands going up on the Strip, it’s a good reminder that the fastest car doesn’t win with a driver who hasn’t practiced,” Burns says. “Whichever way you bet, AI only pays off if your people know how to use it.”

Directly after her keynote, Burns chairs the Technology Leadership Panel: Disruption, Risk and Opportunity in the Digital Age. The panel brings together three continents and both sides of the technology conversation:

• Tanja Cujic, CEO and Managing Partner of Berlin-based Cujic Gebäudedienste and a board member of the German building service contractors’ association
• Dominic Drumm, Founder and Managing Director of New Zealand’s Westferry Property Services
• Janelle Bruland, Founder and CEO of MSNW Group, providing facilities services across the Pacific Northwest, USA.

The panel will explore how cleaning and facility services businesses around the world are using technology and AI, what’s working, what to watch out for, and where the next opportunities lie.

“I’m not a techie; I come at this from the business side,” says Burns. “So I’m delighted to share the stage with three business leaders in facilities services who’ve invested in technology in very different markets. Between them, they’ll bring real-world experience that the whole room can learn from.”